These are great times for those people who belong to the grimy 80’s where bands like SOD, The Accüsed, DRI, Anthrax and others were dominating the scene. Not only the American party crashers of Municipal Waste released one hell of an album with ‘Massive Aggressive’, also Ramming Speed rocks your socks off on their first full length for Candlelight Records. The band’s name may just make the music a little bit predictable, but Ramming Speed is doing much more than speeding things up. The mixture of punk, thrash, hardcore and grind sounds fresh and inspired and delivers songs that continue to grow after several listening sessions.

Variety is the strength of this sequel to the way too less acclaimed Full Speed Ahead 7” (DRI influences?), released by TDB Records. With ‘Speed Trials’, ’Lazer Assault’ and ‘All In All’ the band immediately rushes well. All in all compact hardcore / crossover songs who bring back nostalgic feelings to all the bands mentioned above. However, the influences of Ramming Speed are much broader. Bands like Terrorizer and given the title, Napalm Death, were clearly the inspiration for the hilarious grindcore song ‘Shane Embury is the Brad Pitt of Grindcore’. The rock ‘n roll styled ‘Bogus Facade’ shows also clearly the influence of a band like Motörhead. Finally, the band also looks back at the rich history of traditional metal. In the almost entirely instrumental ‘Sound The Alarm’ the fine guitar solos and the blasting tempo changes are the absolute winners and the metal song is one of the greatest tracks on this album.

Still one remark: to end the record with the Saxon-classic ‘Heavy Metal Thunder’ is a risk. In the case of Ramming Speed there is no happy ending. Both musically and vocally the song is a poor shadow of the original. Hopefully they don’t get the idea in their crazy heads to bring this one live. But because the rest of the album is so damn good, we overlook this flaw and describe the failed cover-version a little bit euphemistically.